COVID-19 cases reach 500 mark in K'taka, 26 new cases confirmed

COVID-19 infections reached the 500 mark in Karnataka on Saturday, as 26 new cases have been confirmed positive, including a journalist, the state government said.

"As of 5:00 PM on April 25, cumulatively 500 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, it includes 18 deaths and 158 discharges," the Health department said in its bulletin.

Out of the 324 active cases, 317 patients (including 1 pregnant woman) are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while seven are in ICU.

Six patients who have recovered have been discharged on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka government on Saturday commenced clinical trials of convalescent plasma therapy to treat critical coronavirus patients in the state.

In this treatment, plasma cells from a COVID-19 patient who has recovered from the disease, is transfused into a coronavirus patient who is in critical condition.

The government has appealed to those patients who were successfully treated for coronavirus to come forward to donate plasma and help in recovery of patients in ICU.

Twenty-six new COVID-19 cases have been reported in the state, of which 13 are from Bengaluru urban, including cameraman of a Kannada news channel, who has visited containment zones demarcated by BBMP (city civic body).

Among other cases in Bengaluru urban, nine are contacts of a 54-year old labourer, who tested positive earlier this week; while the other three are contacts of another patient who has already tested positive.

Cases from other districts include, nine from Hirebagewadi in Belagavi, and one each from Mandya, Chikkaballapura, Bantwala in Dakshina Kannada and Nanjanagudu in Mysuru.

Twenty-four cases are contacts of patients already tested positive, while one is a journalist from Bengaluru and other from Chikkabalapura with a travel history to Hindupura and Anantapura in Andhra Pradesh.

Contact tracing has been initiated and is in progress for all the cases, the department said.

From across the state most number of infections have been reported in Bengaluru urban with 133 cases, followed by Mysuru 89 and Belagavi 54.

Of the total 158 patients discharged so far, maximum 49 are from Bengaluru, 34 from Mysuru, 11 each from Dakshina Kannada and Chikkaballapura.

While among the dead are four each from Bengaluru urban and Kalaburagi, two each from Chikkaballapura, Dakshina Kannada and Vijayapura, and one each from Belagavi, Bagalkote, Gadag and Tumakuru.

A total of 39,083 samples were tested so far, out of which 3,125 were tested on Saturday alone.

So far 34,888 samples have reported as negative, and out of them 2,974 were reported negative on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Commissioner of Health & Family Welfare Services has given instructions to all districts that contact tracing App should be mandatorily used for reporting or entering data of primary and secondary contact of COVID-19 patients, and the mobile app can downloaded by the authorised person.